For a few weeks, things were awkward between Kanna and Pakku. He took an increased interest in the suitors her parents had suggested for her, right when she was anxious to talk about something, anything else.
Her father had said anyone, but Kanna did not think he had really meant it. And she had never dared ask if, say, he would have allowed her to marry Pakku the poor fisherman, whose mother had caused such a scandal when her husband died. Kanna did not ask, because she knew what the answer would be. Anyone meant anyone suitable, which Pakku was most certainly not.
Kanna told Pakku that, the first time he inquired too closely as to the bride price her father intended to ask. She said the same the second time. And the third.
But the fourth time, scarcely a week before Kanna's birthday, she said, "My father is hosting a feast in honor of my sixteenth birthday. He'll expect me to accept a proposal at it. And you have not been invited."
Pakku smiled and held up a necklace. "Do you think he'd object if you accepted one before?"
Kanna knew he would, but she took the necklace anyway.
